Stupidest Spam of the Week Euro Funds

Scammers use all sorts of enticements to get people to reply and give their personal information.

This one is weird in that it’s hard to see who it is aimed at – anyone in investments would recognise it as fake and people not into investments may not understand it.

The email sender’s address is PaulStarr but the message claims to be from Stella June so is an obvious scam.

It’s also sent to Undisclosed Recipients which suggests it has been sent to a large number of people for whom the sender only has email addresses – no names.

The key part of the message is:

I am Stella June from the central computer room of the Euro Screen responsible for all foreign /international transfer passing through Europe.

There has been a standing order pending on a transfer in your name on the Euro screen for months now which happens to be a contract/inheritance funds payment, Please do tell us why you have left your funds half done and unattended to in the euro screen. 

Usually these sorts of messages mention a very large sum of money – in the millions of Pounds, dollars or Euros, but in this case it’s left up to the imagination and perhaps the greed of the email recipient.

There is no attempt to make the email look authentic, no company name or contact details etc.

A simple cheap phishing message. Never reply to such messages.

To enter your email address and click on the subscribe button on top right to keep up to date with new posts.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Avast Secure Browser

Avast Secure Browser is a web browser developed by Avast that focuses on Internet security and privacy. It is free and available for Microsoft Windows, macOS, iOS and Android.

Features

  • Block malicious webpages and browser extensions
  • Advert Block
  • Bank Mode
  • A password manager.
  • Video Downloader
  • Anti-tracking and anti-fingerprinting
  • Anti-Phishing

Bank Mode

Bank Mode creates an isolated Windows desktop session while you do your online banking. This is stop keyloggers from recording your keyboard access.

Bank Mode can give you secure privacy whenever any sort of payment info or sensitive data comes into play. Use it for:

  • online banking
  • online shopping
  • managing investments
  • managing cryptocurrencies

If you have any experiences with secure browsers by any maker, do let me know, by email.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Do Not Unsubscribe

If you receive emails from a reputable business and want the emails to stop then usually the easy answer is just to click the unsubscribe button.

The problem is where you are dealing with emails from companies that you don’t know whether they are reputable or not and of course the vast majority of spam messages are from the disreputable sources.

For these, it’s usually a bad idea to click on the unsubscribe link – assuming there is one of course.

Why is that?

  1. By clicking, you are confirming that the email address is Live and hence it may be added to spam lists that sell at a higher price than spam lists of untested email address. These lists are sold to other scammers and spammers.
  2. Your click demonstrates an interest in the subject of the email. A sender that is not reputable will then double down and send you many more similar emails.
  3. The sender can glean quite a lot of information from your click, about your browser and operating system, IP address etc. and that can be used to target scams and attacks against you.
  4. The link you click may well be to a site that tries to download malware onto your device.

Think twice before clicking on an unsubscribe link.

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

 

The Card and Payment Crime Unit

The Dedicated Card and Payment Crime Unit (DCPCU) is a proactive operational Police unit with a national remit. It was formed in 2002 in partnership between UK Finance, the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police.

Their brief is to investigate, target and, where appropriate, arrest and seek successful prosecution of offenders responsible for card, cheque and payment fraud crimes.

In the first half of 2020 the unit disrupted seven organised crime groups, made 70 arrests and secured 30 convictions. Through close collaboration with banks, the telecoms industry and other law enforcement agencies, the unit prevented an estimated £12.5 million of fraud and seized or blocked over £2 million in assets. Also, their partnership with social media platforms led to the identification of accounts that featured posts relating to payment crime and saw more than  500 social media accounts linked to fraudulent activity taken down.

The DCPCU is comprised of officers from the City of London Police and Metropolitan Police as well as banking industry fraud investigators and support staff from UK Finance. It carried out enforcement activity against individuals seeking to use Covid-19 as an opportunity to target victims, executing 25 warrants between March and June 2020.

The DCPCU say they continue to work closely with UK Finance and its members from across the payment industry to tackling the constantly evolving challenges of fraud.

DCPCU recommend that Consumers follow the advice of the Take Five to Stop Fraud campaign to stay safe from fraud, and always question any uninvited approaches to transfer money or give away personal details in case they are a scam.

https://fightback.ninja/take-five-stop-fraud/

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Fightback Ninja Signature

Amazon Brand Protection

Amazon is the biggest retailer on the planet and most of their sales are not actually Amazon products but sold on behalf of other businesses using the Amazon platform and Amazon is a huge target for all sorts of scams and other types of fraud.

Amazon Brand Registry Program

This is Amazon’s way to tie brand owners more closely into Amazon and give them extra functions and services to protect and build on their brand. It is particularly useful if a product maker has multiple retailers selling their products online.

Amazon Describes The Benefits As :

  • It helps a brand to have control over their product listings
  • It ensures that the information given about a product is accurate
  • It helps to increase product sales
  • It helps protect the brand
  • It enhances the brand content
  • It helps improve efficiency
  • It helps to list the products without UPCs or EANs
  • It eases the listing of products
  • It helps create different product variations
  • It eliminates bad listings
  • It comes with enhanced customer support
  • It offers enhanced image search to match any fake logo(s) or product(s) through images

Who Qualifies to Use the Brand Register?

  • Sellers who sell their products under their brand name
  • Sellers who are manufacturers
  • Sellers who are actually private label brand owners
  • Sellers who produce white label products
  • Sellers who are actually distributors and who have the authority to own a trademark’s content in Amazon

If you have any experiences with these scams do let me know, by email.

Fightback Ninja Signature